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Well, some may have found that the most edge of seat racing, but I personally, found it to be strained and average.

There were great moments, Paul DiResta making it up 10 places from where he poorly qualified was certainly a highlight, and as a Mark Webber fan, seeing him go forwards and not backwards at the start was a great thing!

I must say that if it wasn’t for DRS and KERS then there would have been a lot of waiting around for very few battles to happen. Some have been saying that it is very artificial, but I would have to disagree, it’s an evolving sport, one that thankfully is moving forward with current technological advances. Instead of writing stuff off all together F1 does like to investigate and then either implement or ban a certain new development. KERS and the F-duct are two prime examples of each of these.

I have previously written about the sporting regulations and the technical regulations, granted now a few years old now, but all this rubbish around artificial racing makes me want to investigate what is illegal, as it points to previous developments on other cars that may or may not have given advantages (holes in the floor etc).

But alas I currently have no time! Maybe for the 2014 season, over christmas, I will read through them again. Just to make sure I can nit-pick appropriately for next season.

ANYWAY as I was saying, I’m still trying to think of race highlights, VDG not quite holding the door open? Hulkenburg not quite having suspension damage (at least it didn’t look like it to me!) and retiring prematurely? Maldonado not having any depth perception? The fact that Romain Grosjean made it to the end of the race, his car fully intact?

I dunno, maybe it was the amazing weather tormenting me, but I just couldn’t really get into this race. Silverstone now has a lot of pressure to deliver!

Boats, Girls, Legs up to the ears of the tallest of the drivers and some motor racing.

It must be the Monaco race!

Although the race is not without its controversies, Currently we have Pastor Maldonado with a 10 place grid drop for “loosing the car and accidentally driving into Sergio Perez” [ie, being a hot headed tit and driving like a moron] and we have Michael Schumacher, who after “Having Bruno Senna drive too slowly and cause a crash” [ie, not being aware of his surroundings, showing his age really] has a 5 place grid drop.

After taking pole initially for the race, this is a massive kick in the venires for the German, who up until this race, has had a piss poor return to the sport.

This promotes my personal favourite driver [he used to drive a green car, I was young ok?] Mark Webber to pole position. Great for my fantasy league as I have predicted him for the race win. Miracles do happen.

Felipe Massa has had a better time of it this weekend as well, making into the top 10 shootout of Q3 for the first time this season, is it enough to improve Ferrari’s no-tolerance approach to losing? Unlikely. However it does put the Brazilian’s confidence through the roof again, which has been lacking since his unfortunate accident in Hungary in 2009. I’ve personally missed it, he’s too much of a lovable cuddly bear to leave F1. He also took no shit from Lewis Hamilton, something which he will forever have my respect for.

There is something a fair bit odd about this year compared to last year. The top teams (McLaren, Ferrari and RedBull) haven’t dominated in the way that usually occurs, infact, it’s been so topsy turvey that nobody knows what’s going on, the Pirelli guys are just smiling and being smug in their chemistry labs!

McLaren seemed to have solved Jenson Buttons “lack of rear grip”, however that could just be because he was going so slowly compared to the rest, that he can’t tell whether he is going backwards or not -he starts 13th tomorrow. Lewis Hamilton had an all-round OK qualifying – he will start the race in 3rd tomorrow.

RedBull have had a tale of two halves again, however, unlike previous weeks where it has been Sebastian Vettel taking the limelight, it’s Mark Webber who will take the pole position grid slot, whilst Sebastian will start from 10th, after the team decided to save tyres.

Lotus, now here is a team who are improving, and are starting to light a fire under the top teams, they regularly do better than Ferrari, and are a clear leader of the mid-field teams… Meaning tomorrow’s race is going to be EPIC.

Watching Qualifying for the Formula One today, I was expecting a Redbull pole with Ferrari yet again under performing whilst only one of the Mercedes cars made an impact.

So… I was right… but totally wrong.

I say I’m right because in all intense and purposes, if these scenarios were reversed then I would be right.

Redbull didn’t get pole and in a strange event, Sebastian Vettel didn’t even try and be last to cross the line with the fastest lap. settling for a more conservative approach, a better result that my favourite driver however, Mark Webber, who falsely assumed his safety in Q2, and watched as his time was smashed and smashed again. Finally starting in P12.

Mclaren were a team of 2 halves, whilst Lewis Hamilton topped each of the qualifying sessions, Jenson Button had a fluke change of heart towards his car, suffering understeer through out. Something the FOM thought would be useful to mention in every session. Not. Pole for Lewis Hamilton, 0.5 seconds ahead of his nearest rival and 11th for Jenson Button who apparently had an understeer problem…

Ferrari were expected to just be on the track. Nobody expected anything, and Felipe Massa delivered that prediction, quite successfully by starting in 17th. Fernando Alonso seems to have received black magic from his home crowd and starts 3rd…

The rest of the field is quite predictable with 2 exceptions, Williams were again a story of 2 halves where Bruno Senna qualified 18 after encountering alot of traffic and spinning on his final flying lap, parking up in the gravel, Pastor Maldonado however parked his car on the front row with Lewis Hamilton. Good luck Pastor, if you do go backwards at the start please don’t do a Daniel Ricciardo.

Sauber hit it good as well with both cars in the top 10, showing good pace for the race!

i’m excited for the race, we will have to see why Lewis Hamilton had to stop on track, as if it is something like say… a gearbox change as the rumours around the track are saying, he won’t start on Pole! Maybe Maldonado won’t go backwards? Hopefully Mark Webber will just go forwards.

Now you’ll have to excuse me, I’m just watching the rest of GP2 (basically Formula One but without the manners), Sky really have opened up motorsport to the wider commmunity!

On the track, the event was incredible, more wheel to wheel action, more over takes and a different person from a different team on the top step of the podium. And although it’s the familiure finger of Sebastian Vettel filling our TV screens, he is the 4th person to take to the top step this season.

Off the track was a whole other board game. Protests, a death, a political uproar…. You name it and I can pretty much assure you that that is what the media were reporting.

“From what I have experienced here, and what I have seen in the media, are different. I felt fine going round Bahrain…”

Or words to that effect.

My twitter feed has been filled with my opinions of the Bahrain GP, infact I have blogged previously on it. I stand by what I said then, but I will add this analogy for you, one which people I know have had to go through.

Imagine you are working for an oil company. You know there are some pretty rough places out in the world, places you have heard on the news, places that your work are considering sending you to. These places include: Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Nigeria. Your raise the issue of travelling to these places and your work place agrees to inspect the location you are going to work for safety reasons.

Your workplace present the evidence to you, evidence from local security, local government, and external security forces. The evidence states that the place they are to send you to is safe.

You know that there are areas of these places which suffer unrest, infact you have heard it on the news, but only in fleeting passes.

Sound familiar?

It should. Because that is what happened in Formula One. Hindsight is a powerful thing and I bet if they could make a decision now about the race they wouldn’t have gone there. But as was pointed out as well by Martin Brundle, there has been a major golf and cricket tournament held there within the past month, where arguably, they received more coverage on the sports channels.

Why has F1 had to get involved in this? The media.

Simple two words but they have blown everything skywards. F1 had no choice to go there as soon as the FIA declared it fine to go and the teams said yes. I have great respect for those who openly spoke against it, Force India being the main ones with Ross Brawn saying that a dialogue was needed if a situation like this ever arised again.

As everyone was just doing as they were told I believe that it was a decision unfortunately taken out of the teams hands.

What this weekend has taught me, and what I hope everyone will take away from this, is that you can’t judge a book by its cover. Bahrain, according to the media, was a hell on Earth. According to the people there it was an uncomfortable situation, as they didn’t know how to feel about it.

I will from now on take the media reports with a pinch of salt. Yes Sky News is owned by the idiot that is Murdoch, and yes the BBC are meant to be impartial. But if it wasn’t for the F1 being there then nobody would be interested.

Thursday this news was headlines for the sports news.

Only by Friday evening was it hitting the main headlines, which goes to show how horrific the news is. It feeds on terrible news and information and doesn’t mind taking a small line from someone and making it seem like gospel. So please people, form your own opinions. Whether it is fom an amalgamation of the news sources, or from people you know have been there (the latter being where my info has come from).

And when it comes to activist groups and those involved with human rights… eat a spoonful of salt. They make everything worse than it is to just get it attention. (No bad thing I suppose… but not the right way to do things).

Should they have gone? No.

Did they have any choice in the matter? No.

Should Jean Todt be smacked in the face for saying that “things outside the circuit are of no importance to us” ? YES.

And before anybody comments, just know I was writing this down to get it out of my head. This weekend has caused a lot of thinking to be done by everyone it seems.

This weekend saw the second race weekend of the 2012 calender and what a couple of races it has been! Australia was full if drama right up until the flag, and Malaysia produced a surprise result that caught the entireity of Italy offguard.

A bonus for me as a Mark Webber fan is that he out-qualified Sebastian Vettel twice, and finished in the points both races, unlike the young double world champion, which after a season full of not being on the same playing field as his team mate, is a massive relief and makes this season even more exciting for me!

However the drama was nothing compared to what Felipe Massa is going through now, its now a case of ‘will he won’t he’ be racing for the entirity of the season, after finishing outside the points whilst Fernando Alonso took a surprising victory with a car that ferrari has admitted isn’t the best, and Sergio Perez of the ferrari young driver program took a second place in what was an epic battle for the line. Till he took a trip round the curb to add a few more seconds to the gap he had closed. This was after he got told to ‘be careful’ by his engineer, but we aren’t pointing any fingers at the young ferrari prodigy who drives for sauber who have ferrari engines. Nope…

It all kicked off with Sebastian Vettel and Narain Karthykaen (whose name I have spelt wrong… Sorry I’m on my phone!) When seb.decided to show an unfamiliar finger to the ‘young’ Indian driver, they then seemed to exchange insults via the media for the world to see. I can’t even remember the petty incident they are stropping about but for sure (I could be a formula one driver now) will this not be an easy thing to shake. Vettel has been called a bully, Narain has been branded a cry baby and neither of those is a good name to have. Personally I don’t really care what they call each other. As ling as they respect each other on the road. Yes that means moving out the way for the lapping car, but also not moaning if the slower car is in a fight for position. They should just cuddle and say that it was all heat of the moment, which it was.

I’m excited for China, if the current track of results is anything to go by then, for sure (driver in the making right here) it will be an awewome race.

The most exciting queue of traffic on the calender. Not known for it’s overtaking todays race quite certainly broke the mould.

Safety cars, a red flag, race restart and drive through penalties. Some people seem more hard done by than others.

Lewis Hamilton made the mistake of running on the inside of people whilst others had the racing line, causing an avoidable accident (twice) which then led to the retirement of the 2 drivers.

Now, i know Lewis Hamilton is such a sore loser, i have made fun of this fact several times because he really is like a child who has had his ice cream taken from him. However i think his ‘jokes’ went a bit too far this time.

He hasn’t had a good weekend. He got a penalty for cutting the chicane and demoted to 9th in qualifying, i’m surprised he didn’t complain about the track not being straight enough, then he tried to take himself through the inside of the slowest corner of the track alongside Massa, and ended up colliding. Massa then seemed to throw his toys out the box and get all out of shape and drag himself along the wall.

He had it coming! He was a naughty boy and he deserves every penalty he gets. In his frustrations he then blames the team for calling him in and just not being ready…

Martin Brundel hits it perfectly;

“With Lewis, it’s always someone else’s fault”

But today he seems to be afflicted by the stewards so much that he has to be arrogant enough to say “i dunno, maybe it’s cuz i’m black“. Horrendous things to say – he did say “that’s what Ali-G says” but does that really allow him to say things like that? Granted this thing has probably been blown right out of the water, but he should be aware that he is a hero to alot of people.

Tact Lewis. We get you’re mad, but maybe you should have just downed a few Tequila shots like the rest of us, instead of slyly suggesting the FIA are racist…

Sunday saw the final race of the F1 season, and before i go into a brushed over analysis of what i thought about the race, firstly I would like to say a big congratulations to Sebastian Vettel. Who, against the odds, against the bookies, (and mainly against Fernando Alonso and the oddly on-pace McLarens) defeated all the rivals to end up on top. 4 points is apparently the defining difference that makes this years WDC, and he got it!

Yes as a Mark Webber fan i was bitter, i was heart broken – much less than i am sure the man himself was – but i just sat in silence, knowing that the team i have become rather attached too has just been made a double world Champion for the 2010 season.

Knowing alot of Vettel fans, i was delighted to see my twitter feed rammed pack full of delighted (and one instance @tommyb89, drunken) messages of joy. It was nice to see that they didn’t even expect it either! And thankfully, I have come around to being happy for them, which if you’re a highly competetive person, is a very hard thing to do!

The race itself saw the championship contenders in a bit of a mix. The McLarens who have been distinctly off-pace the last few races seemed to glide over the lightly dusted surface, and almost rain on Vettel’s parade. Mark Webber was limping behind in an almost heartbreaking 5th and then Alonso was there somewhere too…..

There are a few key things to note from the race, 1- Liuzzi is probably the most UNLUCKIEST driver of this season, with the incident with Schumacher, thankfully both survived unscathed!

The resulting safety car saw numerous people pit…. then after….. O MW…. o FA….. strategy gone wrong? response gone wrong? hindsight is one of those things i don’t particuarly want to think about now. Fact is, they got held up behind Algesuari, (ish), then Petrov, in one of his drives of the season, didn’t put a foot wrong for almost 3/4 of that race. Decimating any title hope that Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber had.

Kubica also succeded in annoying another championship contender – Lewis Hamilton. For a LONG time. and it was only when he pitted that Hamilton managed the jump.

The race in itself was dull, the fact that the title was being decided there made it ever more frustrating. Not an amazing race to end the 2010 seaon on. But definately a good result. Who honestly saw that one coming ehy?

The 2011 season starts in around 110 days and with that it seems a lot of new drivers are coming in. Hulkenberg has lost his race seat for next year, HRT has lost the deal with toyota, Di Grassi has lost his seat….. questions are still being raised over the fate of young Petrov and Mr Liuzzi, and then we’ll also be losing Nick Heidfeld.

Although the driver transfers are all part and parcel of the F1 criteria, it is a sad fate to see such young talented individuals leave. However it does seem like people are planning on leaving in 2012. So who knows! maybe we’ll just get an out-flux of golden oldies leaving and no young drivers?

Keep an eye out on the young driver tests this week. Today RBR‘s Daniel Ricciardo (My future favouritest driver) topped the timesheets in the RB6. That’s above di Resta, who has been driving a Force India for half the season’s FP1’s.

Future star right there? DEFO.

I’ll leave you with these images, the first chmpionship that RBR has ever won. The 2010 constructors. And Sebastian Vettel, 2010 WDC.

And is you hadn’t have guessed it’s going to be a fight to the finish. Mark Webber starting in 5th with Fernando Alonso stroking his cat in front of him will surely kick up some interesting over-takes (hopefully)

Alonso is using his engine from Monza (as far as i’m aware) so I’m hoping for a minor (major) failure on the straight. or a turn. or on the starting grid.

For all his skill on the race-track it’s a shame that if Alonso wins by less than 7 points, it will be tarnished by the events that happened in Hockenheim. Surely he would have passed Felipe Massa in the coming laps? – Past events.

Lewis Hamilton. Twitter new-boy and it seems he has found the pace this weekend! Granted nobody could remove pole from Sebastian Vettel, but he sure put in the hard work. Only a miracle can allow him the title. But the race win is in his grasp.

Not much needs to be said on the Red Bull Drivers, and if i started having to discuss them i’m sure i could go on for at least a novel. Or a series of them…..

Although the battle at the front is going to be intense, it shouldn’t be forgotton that Vitaly Petrov out-qualified Robert Kubica this weekend. AND didn’t put his car in the wall. which is always a good thing! There is still a battle amongst the mid-field teams for prime positions – battles which could affect the race leaders.

So whilst Martin Brundle goes on about how this is a race for the 4 remaining title challengers, It’s more ofa race for the people behind. Who will not just be fighting for points/a finish, but also for Race seats. – which to be honest, you kind of need to beable to challenge for anything.

So, we’re coming to the end of the season, the colours have been separeated from the darks, and the whites are first in the wash cycle.

So when it came to saturday, and the white cycle was mid spin, we catch a glimpse of a blue sock. SHOCK. we cannot stop the cycle and open the door, surely the damage is already done?

The blue sock in the white wash? how would the whites feel about that? their cycle being tinged by the sock!

Will the sock run through the rest of the cycle without hindering the whites? Or will the sock run its colour and taint the whites cycle?

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Nico Hulkenberg qualified a surprising pole position, granted in the changeable condtions Interlagos offers, but a fantastic lap, 1.1 seconds ahead of the unmistakenably fast Red Bulls, and trumping Ferrari as well as his Williams Team Mate Reubens Barichello.

Hulkenberg has a hefty challenge ahead of him, a dry race prediction and the 4 championship contenders breathing down his neck, I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t want to look into his mirrors before the lights drop tomorrow. However he seems to have the dryest set up of all the front runners, hence his jaw dropping achievement in qualifying yesterday.

The race today will throw up some interesting results, if the top 5 manage to survive past the first corner the rest of the race should yield a few surprises.

However much i want Mark Webber to finish up on the top step, and however much I want Red Bull to wrap up the WCC, Wouldn’t it be nice to have a blue sock thrown in the mix?